Suicide and economy
Unemployment, employment rates
This is because while I was trying to think of interesting topics, I thought of topics relating to Canada that could possibly be interesting and still have statistics. The first thing that came to mind was “death”. I thought it’d be interesting because there are usually more interesting things to connect to with death. Then I branched this off to the idea of suicide. I ended up concluding that I wanted to choose suicide as a topic. Next, I wanted something that I hypothesized would directly correlate with suicide. This ended up being the unemployment rate and employment rate of Canada. This is because I thought that the stress and mid-life crisis levels of these citizens would have a direct affect on them ending their lives.
Question
Does unemployment rate of Canada affect the suicide rate? Are they directly correlated?
The unemployment rate is the x-axis as it is the independent variable which will affect the amount of suicides.
The time line which this comparison follows is between 2003 and 2009. This is most recent data that has been collected through census and will be most accurate as it is recent data.
Hypothesis
Unemployment and Suicide rate is correlated because people who are unemployed typically go through midlife crisis and have higher stress levels than other people. The reasoning behind why I think this is a good hypothesis is because unemployment could potentially be a factor behind the reason why someone would commit suicide. Unemployment leads to stress and crisis and therefore, it would be natural to see a correlation between the two.
Suicide Rate
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Both sexes
All ages
3,765
3,613
3,743
3,512
3,611
10 to 14
27
28
43
31
33
15 to 19
216
210
213
152
185
20 to 24
306
270
296
265
290
25 to 29
245
275
228
237
282
30 to 34
295
316
283
243
235
35 to 39
434
390
381
318
325
40 to 44
463
409
495
418
403
45 to 49
454
446
476
459
486
50 to 54
404
393
407
369
410
55 to 59
292
275
294
328
307
60 to 64
187
174
166
209
203
65 to 69
142
121
138
145
115
70 to 74
105
108
99
104
102
75 to 79
85
88
113
113
103
80 to 84
53
63
66
62
76
85 to 89
34
36
31
39
42
90 and older
23
11
13
20
14
Unemployment Rate in 2007 by the 1000s
Population
Force
Employment
Unemployment
Both sexes
27,309
18,369
16,849
1,520
15-24 years
4,394.10
2,867.90
2,430.10
437.8
15-19 years
2,161.60
1,140.40
912.1
228.4
20-24 years
2,232.60
1,727.50
1,518.00
209.5
25 years and over
22,915.00
15,500.80
14,418.80
1,082.00
25-44 years
9,266.40
8,052.20
7,454.00
598.2
25-34 years
4,545.00
3,923.20
3,612.50
310.7
35-44 years
4,721.50
4,129.00
3,841.40
287.6
45-64 years
9,277.50
6,988.60
6,524.70
463.8
45-54 years
5,250.90
4,495.80
4,205.30
290.5
55-64 years
4,026.60
2,492.80
2,319.40
173.3
65 years and over
4,371.10
460
440.1
19.9
55 years and over
8,397.70
2,952.80
2,759.50
193.3
Background information
The data will include unemployment rate widespread across Canada. This country was chosen because it represents a well developed country. Therefore, the unemployment rate will not be too skewed and I think this will more likely to only match the people who are going through mid-life crisis. The total amount of unemployed people in 2007 is about 1.5 million people; while it is only a fraction of our 30 million population, it is still a lot of unemployed people. Suicides affects a lot of countries worldwide. However, since this is a comparison for correlation between the stress and tension generated by unemployment and the end result, only Canada is used. Thankfully, the information for suicides between 2003 and 2007 ranges between 3600 and 3800 total. Although it is still too high of a number, it does not match the amount of unemployed people. Thus, all the info for unemployment rate is in (thousands).
Bias and Sampling
The sampling technique used to collect the raw data was a census of the whole country. It is not a sample but rather a census of the entire population of Canada in order to get this information. Thus, this information should be as accurate as data could get. Some bias may include the fact that I use a very large age range. This will end up including many outliers like those who've retired at a late age or early teens who've yet to get jobs. This will mean that the "stress" will not be there as a factor for the people to end up committing suicide. Another form of bias would be that I did not do more than the year of 2007 as this was the only and most recent year where all this information was available. Thus, this information won't have much reliance as many other repeated censuses which cause an average for results.Finally, each age group varies on size and thus, this will skew the amount of people that are unemployed or committing suicide in each age group.
One-Variable Analysis: Unemployment rate
The mean for the data I collected was 138.9 for every age group. This means that the average amount of unemployed people was 138 900 for each range of ages.
The standard deviation for the mean of unemployment was 57.9. This means that the average does not represent the data very well. Since the deviation from the mean is so high, this suggests that the unemployment rate ranges very vastly amongst the age groups.
One-Variable Analysis: Suicide rate
The mean for the data I collected was 294.6 for every age group. This means that the average amount of people committing suicide in each age group was about 294 people.
The standard deviation for the mean of suicides was 109.1. This means that the average does not represent a majority of the data points for suicide rates as well. Due to a high standard deviation for suicide rates as well, this means that the suicide rates for each age group are very random compared to the mean.
Two-Variable Analysis: Unemployment rate VS Suicide rate
(include graph) The graph shows that these two different variables were in fact not very well correlated. I was hoping for a moderately strong positive correlation. However, after deciding on a quadratic equation for the line of best fit, the correlation is still only 0.55. This means that the correlation is very weak and shows little pattern in the comparison of the two variables. One reason why I think that a quadratic equation fits this type of data is because if you notice the center of the graph, that's where all the data points are. This is likely due to a majority of the population having a peak of becoming depressed from being unemployed. The points after it, being the outliers that do not let unemployment affect their mentality about life. Thus, although the correlation is weak, there is still some pattern. Some Hidden Variables: Some hidden variables that may have skewed the data I collected would be the following: - Optimism - Retirement - Environment - Age group Optimism: The people who don’t have jobs yet they are still happy and skeptical about a disastrous future. These people would have added to the amount of unemployed yet at the same time, decrease the percent of people that commit suicide. This would skew the data away from my hypothesis. Retirement/Early jobs: There are people who retire early between ages 50 and 60. This causes some of the data to be skewed because they still count as people who are “unemployed” yet at the same time they’re not the kind of people who would be likely to commit suicide. Then there are the people who do not have jobs yet because they’re still in school. This is normal for them because they do not need to worry about money as much as adults do and therefore it would not affect their stress level. Rather, the stress would be generated from school work. Environment: The area that the people live in could play a major role on the unemployment and suicide rate. A certain area of the country could be jobless due to limited amount of opportunities which would cause more people to have a hard time looking for a job. While a neighbouring area could have plenty of job opportunities, yet the area would have a disastrous atmosphere that leads to mental breakdowns and eventually suicide. Age group: Many teens who haven’t fully matured are likely candidates to over-react to their emotions and destroy themselves mentally. This will cause an increased factor of suicide and mental breakdown. This, they contribute to the amount of suicides. Another age group that would be affected are the adults going through mid-life crisis. They lose both their jobs and their sanity. They have serious stress issues and this could lead to suicide. Thus, although there may still be the possibility that unemployment does play a role in determining the suicide rate, the data shows that it is not relevant enough or too skewed to have any direct correlation. There are too many outliers and hidden variables that may have caused an effect on this. The data is still somewhat correlated and that means, yes, there’s still that idea of stress and mental breakdowns from being unemployed will cause suicides amongst the masses.
Suicide and economy
Unemployment, employment rates
This is because while I was trying to think of interesting topics, I thought of topics relating to Canada that could possibly be interesting and still have statistics. The first thing that came to mind was “death”. I thought it’d be interesting because there are usually more interesting things to connect to with death. Then I branched this off to the idea of suicide. I ended up concluding that I wanted to choose suicide as a topic. Next, I wanted something that I hypothesized would directly correlate with suicide. This ended up being the unemployment rate and employment rate of Canada. This is because I thought that the stress and mid-life crisis levels of these citizens would have a direct affect on them ending their lives.
Question
Does unemployment rate of Canada affect the suicide rate? Are they directly correlated?
The unemployment rate is the x-axis as it is the independent variable which will affect the amount of suicides.
The time line which this comparison follows is between 2003 and 2009. This is most recent data that has been collected through census and will be most accurate as it is recent data.
Hypothesis
Unemployment and Suicide rate is correlated because people who are unemployed typically go through midlife crisis and have higher stress levels than other people. The reasoning behind why I think this is a good hypothesis is because unemployment could potentially be a factor behind the reason why someone would commit suicide. Unemployment leads to stress and crisis and therefore, it would be natural to see a correlation between the two.
Suicide Rate
Background information
The data will include unemployment rate widespread across Canada. This country was chosen because it represents a well developed country. Therefore, the unemployment rate will not be too skewed and I think this will more likely to only match the people who are going through mid-life crisis. The total amount of unemployed people in 2007 is about 1.5 million people; while it is only a fraction of our 30 million population, it is still a lot of unemployed people. Suicides affects a lot of countries worldwide. However, since this is a comparison for correlation between the stress and tension generated by unemployment and the end result, only Canada is used. Thankfully, the information for suicides between 2003 and 2007 ranges between 3600 and 3800 total. Although it is still too high of a number, it does not match the amount of unemployed people. Thus, all the info for unemployment rate is in (thousands).
Bias and Sampling
The sampling technique used to collect the raw data was a census of the whole country. It is not a sample but rather a census of the entire population of Canada in order to get this information. Thus, this information should be as accurate as data could get. Some bias may include the fact that I use a very large age range. This will end up including many outliers like those who've retired at a late age or early teens who've yet to get jobs. This will mean that the "stress" will not be there as a factor for the people to end up committing suicide. Another form of bias would be that I did not do more than the year of 2007 as this was the only and most recent year where all this information was available. Thus, this information won't have much reliance as many other repeated censuses which cause an average for results.Finally, each age group varies on size and thus, this will skew the amount of people that are unemployed or committing suicide in each age group.
One-Variable Analysis: Unemployment rate
The mean for the data I collected was 138.9 for every age group. This means that the average amount of unemployed people was 138 900 for each range of ages.
The standard deviation for the mean of unemployment was 57.9. This means that the average does not represent the data very well. Since the deviation from the mean is so high, this suggests that the unemployment rate ranges very vastly amongst the age groups.
One-Variable Analysis: Suicide rate
The mean for the data I collected was 294.6 for every age group. This means that the average amount of people committing suicide in each age group was about 294 people.
The standard deviation for the mean of suicides was 109.1. This means that the average does not represent a majority of the data points for suicide rates as well. Due to a high standard deviation for suicide rates as well, this means that the suicide rates for each age group are very random compared to the mean.
Two-Variable Analysis: Unemployment rate VS Suicide rate
(include graph)
The graph shows that these two different variables were in fact not very well correlated. I was hoping for a moderately strong positive correlation. However, after deciding on a quadratic equation for the line of best fit, the correlation is still only 0.55. This means that the correlation is very weak and shows little pattern in the comparison of the two variables. One reason why I think that a quadratic equation fits this type of data is because if you notice the center of the graph, that's where all the data points are. This is likely due to a majority of the population having a peak of becoming depressed from being unemployed. The points after it, being the outliers that do not let unemployment affect their mentality about life. Thus, although the correlation is weak, there is still some pattern.
Some Hidden Variables:
Some hidden variables that may have skewed the data I collected would be the following:
- Optimism
- Retirement
- Environment
- Age group
Optimism: The people who don’t have jobs yet they are still happy and skeptical about a disastrous future. These people would have added to the amount of unemployed yet at the same time, decrease the percent of people that commit suicide. This would skew the data away from my hypothesis.
Retirement/Early jobs: There are people who retire early between ages 50 and 60. This causes some of the data to be skewed because they still count as people who are “unemployed” yet at the same time they’re not the kind of people who would be likely to commit suicide. Then there are the people who do not have jobs yet because they’re still in school. This is normal for them because they do not need to worry about money as much as adults do and therefore it would not affect their stress level. Rather, the stress would be generated from school work.
Environment: The area that the people live in could play a major role on the unemployment and suicide rate. A certain area of the country could be jobless due to limited amount of opportunities which would cause more people to have a hard time looking for a job. While a neighbouring area could have plenty of job opportunities, yet the area would have a disastrous atmosphere that leads to mental breakdowns and eventually suicide.
Age group: Many teens who haven’t fully matured are likely candidates to over-react to their emotions and destroy themselves mentally. This will cause an increased factor of suicide and mental breakdown. This, they contribute to the amount of suicides. Another age group that would be affected are the adults going through mid-life crisis. They lose both their jobs and their sanity. They have serious stress issues and this could lead to suicide.
Thus, although there may still be the possibility that unemployment does play a role in determining the suicide rate, the data shows that it is not relevant enough or too skewed to have any direct correlation. There are too many outliers and hidden variables that may have caused an effect on this. The data is still somewhat correlated and that means, yes, there’s still that idea of stress and mental breakdowns from being unemployed will cause suicides amongst the masses.
Suicides and Suicide rate, by sex and by age group. (2010, July 19). In Stats Canada. Retrieved November 4, 2010, from http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/hlth66a-eng.htm
Labour force characteristics by age and sex. (2010, January 19). In Stats Canada. Retrieved November 4, 2010, from http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/labor20a-eng.htm?sdi=unemployment